Fighting the Beast
by Java Trinomial
Summary: If Leviticus is legislated, a few women and men will do all they can to return freedom to the US.
1. An Introduction

_A/N: When uploading hand-written HTML from Notepad to FF.net, ALWAYS remember the html tag. baka no mono..._

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; but define yourself." 

-Harvey Fierstein, 1992 Bennington Commencement 

* * *

There are many tales of the persecution of Christians on this board. This is not one of them. 

This isn't really a tale of persecution, actually. 

This is a story about people who will not be bullied into silence, who will not be made a victim, who will define themselves. They are of all faiths, but with many truths common unto all. 

It's a story about human weakness. People can fear what they do not know, and so hate what they have never seen. People can prey on fear and hate to rule. People can use a book of love and turn it to a book of hate. By turning a book of faith to a book of law, all suffer. 

It's a story of human strength. People can never see something and care about it. People can work towards a goal and care enough to sacrifice themselves for it. People can work together for the good of all humanity. 

It's a story, firstmost, of human imperfection. Into every yin a little yang must fall. Loving people can hate; hating people can love. To do good, people can effect the worst evil. Inconsistency rules us. 

This is no fairy tale. There's no prince, princess, witch. Utena has revolutionized the world, and she has destroyed the old stereotypes. So I will do as best I can to make it understandable. 

Reviews are always appreciated. 

* * *

This story begins, like many do, with a death. 


	2. Stoning the Prophets

"In the Bible, the ones who were most certain about what they were doing were the ones who stoned the prophets." 

-Bob Chell, 1996 

* * *

The crowd raged outside. She could hear them screaming, like a hurricane playing through discordant panpipes. The strangest metaphors, she thought of... 

She didn't do much of anything, just lean forward as she sat on the hard bed, eyes staring through the concrete walls. Perhaps she was praying. On one side, that would be a triumph; for the other, it would be a defeat. Minds on either side of those walls knew how convicted the woman was to have kept believing in what she did. She'd told her beliefs often to the guards, simply and with a conviction that echoed the Prophets. But each time, the guards laughed. 

The door rattled a bit. The woman looked up through her hair into the eyes of the executioner. They looked deep into each other's eyes, as if they could read their souls by parsing through the shadows of the iris, the delicacy of the pupil. Both were solemn. 

"You know you can turn back," he said. 

A soft, husky alto, pure like the singer of the angelic choir: "How?" 

"You've done far too much to live." The man was middle-aged, with a deep sadness in his eyes. He mourned for her, even as he was taught she only received what she should. Humanity glistened in him. "Yet if you repent, they will give you death quickly, without pain. You won't suffer." 

"I am sorry, " the woman whispered, "but I cannot live a lie." She paused a moment. "I absolve you of my death." 

The man grasped the bars that separated them. "You are living a lie! Everyone knows this, the whole state! Renounce your false beliefs and accept the truth!" He spoke with anger, but like a vine its seed was a deep hurt. 

"Did they lie to you too?" she asked. "Do you believe?" 

The man focused on the bar, letting her go into blurriness. 

After a moment she looked down. "I'm sorry, I won't ask. I've told you what I live for, and what I'll now die for...Don't respond. They'll hear..." 

"I'm sorry." 

"I forgive you any wrong you could ever do to me." 

She rose, and stood tall. A deep pit in her stomach welled, fear like a pinhead of a neutron star, heavier than Earth in a tiny speck. She turned around and put her hands behind her back to be shackled. 

Steel, cool to the touch, bracelets and anklets. And she turned back, and began walking, leashed to the man who would offer her up to the cold embrace of Death. She would weep, but the tears were dry. 

The crowd grew louder, louder, the storm no longer far but smashing at her mind. It came from the sunlight outside the heavily guarded door. Men with black death glistening in their hands. Death she might buy, if she tried hard enough, if she ran and attacked, if one was fool enough to kill the sacrifice before the allotted time. But the wouldn't, so she wouldn't try. She walked with dignity. It was all she owned now. 

Outside, the light blinded her. She let herself be led to the pole, tied to it, loosely. She leant back against it, feeling the hard unfinished wood. Wood like this was what Jesus had been crucified on. How ironic... 

Her vision adapted. One man walked forward, young with the grace of a lion but the mind of a vulture. He was the politician in charge here. Satan in the desert. He would be the last to tempt her. As he got closer, the noise of the crowd appeared inversely proportionate to his position, for they were silent as he was in her face. 

"You disgust me," he hissed. Then he turned the mic on. "Prisoner Wellesly, do you retract your lying and pollution of this city's minds?" 

Rachel looked up, stared straight into his eyes. She saw nothing. "I retract nothing." 

"Do you repent," he sneered, "of your false views of Jesus Christ?" 

"I stand as I have believed." She swallowed, tapping into the last reserves of courage she had. "I will never change my faith because of a pack of lying, disgusting hypocrites like you," she said plainly. 

The crowd screamed at this. Some were jumping the gun - she felt the whish in the air as imperfect projectiles scattered around her. The suit leaned away, and began speaking to the crowd. Rachel did not follow this, but disfocused her eyes and thought: 

_May something change by my death - it is all I ask of the world._

She tuned in to the last words of the politician, who was now somewhat addressing her. 

"By the laws of the Word of God, you are sentenced to be stoned until you are dead. May the Lord God have mercy on your soul." She could see his lips make out, "Burn in hell, bitch," as he heaved the first stone. 

She felt a rock, smashing into her stomach. She bent, unable to double over because of the chains. Pain tore into her, but at least it was physical. She could at least ignore the pain of her heart breaking for the people who stoned her. 

The crowd followed with their own stones, crying "In Jesus's Name, Amen." 

* * *

Reviews are much appreciated. 


	3. Passion

"Sometimes it hurts more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow. Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead." 

-Angel, Buffy The Vampire Slayer 

* * *

"Are you there?" he asked. His hands rested against the doorposts as he watched her read. 

She didn't answer for a moment, trying to ignore him. But bright orange is hard to ignore, especially when it's a robe on a tall young man who doesn't really look the part. He could have been a skinhead in a different life. This time, life pulled a twist, turning Nazi nasty to Mahayana magga. 

"Yes." Ice cold, but the smoldering inside her kept melting it, leaving slippery puddles of raw emotion on the floor. She curled up on the couch of the room, hiding inside a thick book. He couldn't see what it was. 

No one had dared go near the wing of the house that held Rachel and Michele's rooms since the execution. Jon was the first. Maybe the last, Doug had commented before, in black humor. 

His voice softened, firm but gentle. "You know me, Michele. We've worked here for six months at least. We're on the same side, aren't we?" 

She kept reading, turning pages rapidly as if searching for something. The monk walked forward into the white room, bare of adornment except for the futon couch the girl made her shell. It was simple, like a fireplace carefully swept after a burn. He could imagine what a mess had been made after Michele had heard of her friend's fate. 

"May we talk?" he asked again. 

She lowered the book, then passed it to him. He glanced at the page. The Oxford Bible. The Ten Commandments. 

"What side are you on?" she asked openly. 

"On the side of compassion and against suffering," he answered simply. 

Eyes flashed up, only for a moment. He gazed at her. "You seem afraid," he noted. 

"It starts out as fear, always." She exhaled. "In everything. Fear, anger, hate. And now suffering. It didn't seem to take much before the Land of the Free was taken over. All you needed was a revival and a few people in power with the idea to enforce their beliefs." 

He knelt, cradling a strand of jewels on a chain. "Was it really that easy?" 

She watched the window. "No. The fear was of nuclear holocaust. And how it was stopped, they all claimed it a miracle. Harlen claimed it as Christ, and so they followed him thus. Many did, at least." Her mind, unable to push away what was truly devouring it, instead went on tangents that would still follow back home. Jon understood. 

"Religion isn't a bad thing, Michele." 

Her tone grew edgy. "Intolerance is. And that's the ideal that Harlen followed. When so many were converted, they started changing things. Constitutional Amendments. Judges. Laws. It makes so much sense on paper, and then you turn around and they've legislated Leviticus." 

Jon passed the stand around his fingers. Michele looked at him blankly. Now the ice had changed, to a thin sheet of mica through which the inferno of her soul could clearly be seen. 

"Yet even Christianity can do good." He raised the strand. "Let me show you--" 

The blur in front of him grasped one end of the rosary and tore. Jon let go, but too late. The chain broke, exploded, shattered in fragments that glittered on the floor. The remainder of the prayer chain Michele smashed into the wall, before turning at the kneeling figure in rage. 

_"You **fucking Buddshit bastard!** Do you think religion did any good for Rachel? **Look out the damn window!**"_ She pointed, but Jon kept his eyes straight on her. _"She's **DEAD**! The bastard Christians and their righteous bullshit for their Lord God Almighty killed her! And you have the balls to show me a bloody Lourdes crucifix rosary and tell me that Christianity does **good?** How **DARE** you!"_

One hand was raised, as if to slap him. Jon simply watched her. They formed a tableau of stilled fury and passive action. Paradox in non-motion. 

Eternity in a moment. 

The futon mattress made a matte _thump_ as Michele fell onto it. She lay on her stomach, face down into the futon. Jon breathed softly and rhythmically as he had been, but Michele's was irregular, jagged through the muffling of the futon. 

She smashed her fist into the futon. Again. Twice more. Then like a tribal drum, each beat a beast, a demon feasting on her pain, she pounded out her rage. Only one fist, the other clenched under her chest. She played until she was drained. Then she simply lay. 

Silence. 

Jon stood, and walked over. He waited for her to decide to notice him, and sat when she scrunched down. He laid a hand on her shoulder. 

"Rachel is a great woman. You were lucky to have her as a companion for however long." 

The fire changed forms again... 

"That faith which causes people to kill and persecute is not Right, in any way of Buddha. Any faith that makes people treat others as they would not wish to be treated is not Right. This brand of Christianity is definitely not Right." 

A pause. He knew she knew that. This wasn't mental - it was her heart breaking. She'd forgotten something important... 

Jon told her the truth she needed to remember. "You are not alone. We love you, Michele." 

...and liquid fire flooded the world, hot tears soaking his orange robe at the shoulder. He held her softly as she trembled with each new dam crashing open. Hoarsely she cried a dozen laments, talking to the dead. Jon replied in whispers, reciting bodhisattva quotes, mantras to soothe her, to allow her to let go of her pain. 

After a while she stopped crying. The fire had returned, but smoldered very low to conserve itself. Michele moved to sit next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Together, they watched the shadows flitter on the wall. 

"Harlen says he is righteous." 

Jon thought before replying. 

"Then perhaps Harlen is lying." 

Michele smiled softly. "'I want to keep on smashing lies.' Rachel said that often. And something in Japanese - 'watashi wa sekai wo kaeru.' I will change the world. It's from an anime. Shoujo Kakumei Utena." 

"Hmm." 

Michele looked up once more. "I...I know that it's not all bad, I do." 

"What?" 

"Christians. I know...I mean, Evie. And Josh, most of the time. I respect, I know the Ethic, it's just..." She trailed off. 

Jon smiled and held her closer. "Just because you give in to anger sometimes doesn't make you bad. We all know you're the fiery one. Things thought in anger must always be weighed against things thought in calmness." He thought a moment. "No one would condemn you for a moment of rage after Rachel's death." 

"Hm." 

Quiet. Breathing. Peace. 

They sat, curled together, for a long time, gazing at the remains of the rosary, until Doug called for them. 

* * *

Reviews are always appreciated. 


	4. Church and State

"The church ought to be separated from the state, and the state from the church." 

- Pope Pius IX 

"..the government of the United States of America is in no sense founded on the Christian Religion...." 

-US Treaty of Tripoli, 1797-JUN-10: 

* * *

Josh watched the orange-draped monk pass through the common room, in search of the hidden Michele, from his room. He shook his head. "He's going to be attacked." 

"Jon's got faith," was the reply from the bathroom. 

"In Christ? If not, it doesn't matter." 

Water sloshed, bristles scratched. "You have Windex? Need to clean the mirrors." 

"Oh, yes." The man leaned over to the windowsill and plucked the blue bottle from its perch. He got up and padded over to the second-floor bathroom, then peeked inside. 

A short-haired Asian woman of petite stature was engaged in an honest beating of the toilet. In shorts and a tank, she wrestled with the brush inside and the scrubber outside at the same time. Neon white suds showed on the ivory surfaces. 

"You cleaned this bathroom two days ago, " he said, confused. 

She was the youngest of their college group, a freshman when the government shut the University down. But it wasn't her position in the fellowship that made her clean. 

She corrected him. "Five days." 

And in that week since the stoning, she had attacked with insane vigor the lower bathroom, all the rugs in the house, all the windows inside and out, the kitchen twice, the floors, the attic, the garage, the cobwebs -- he found it hard to believe that a shred of dust could exist in the house. Or dirt. Or germs. Or even two stones on top of one other. 

She made Martha Steward look like a mud wrestler, when she was driven by anxiety. She often was - no one knew whether it was because of general anxiety, or perhaps Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. 

"He doesn't believe in God," Josh said, returning to their Buddhist roommate. 

_scrataskrshhscratach._

The woman refused to debate such an obvious fact. 

"He has not accepted--" 

Evie looked up. Josh stopped. He didn't like to argue with Evie, because he knew how it ended up each time. Neither would agree, and she'd be cold for days. Seeing as how she was one of the few people that talked to him, or openly tolerated him in the group, that was not a good possibility. 

A flush, and the old, water-wasting toilet became Charybdis. Potent symbolism for their lives right now. 

She stood and plucked the windex from his hand, misted it over the mirror. His reflection grew distorted, inhumanized. 

"That's how I believe." 

"Rachel?" 

Josh opened his mouth immediately, then shut it from guilt. He tried again, and suceeded, straining himself: "She never said she wasn't Christian. There are Christian Humanists, you know. Maybe she was only saying it to get attention..." 

He stopped again, trailing off. You could see the ellipse, the obvious lie to the words. But Evie didn't take advantage of his temporary weakness of position. That wasn't how she worked. Her method was much worse. 

One passage of clarity through the looking glass. Josh saw himself, clean-shaven, dirty blonde hair. Even with a fair build, he towered over Evie. 

The younger woman finished wiping down the mirror. Once done, she sat down on the floor and sighed. 

"And do you think that they were right to stone her?" 

Josh jumped back into the wall, shocked at the simplicity of Evie's accusation. "Never! It's only her right to say what she believes in, even if it's against Christ. She shouldn't have been killed!" 

"She said Jesus was mortal. That he sinned. That he wasn't the Son of God. That the government was not correct in it's actions." 

"Even if what she said was blasphemy, she shouldn't be dead!" he exclaimed. 

Evie looked up, looked through him. "But that's the bible's exact punishment for blasphemy. Exodus, I believe. And in multiples of other places." Her voice laid the trap for him. 

Josh stood firm. "Holiness Code. We are not the Israelites, Evie." 

She looked to the side, out the door, and he followed her gaze. He could see Gabriel passing through, going to his rooms. "Then why do you demonize him to me?" she asked, nodding in the Wiccan's direction. "That 'man laying with man as woman' is part of the Holiness Code. If part of the Code is invalid..." 

This time, she left off. And in the best spot - because Josh filled in the blank in his mind better than any phrasing she could pull up. 

"Are you calling me a hypocrite?!" he demanded. 

Evie's demeanor grew soft, but hidden. "I did not _say_ anything." She got up, sorted the cleaning instruments in a bucket. 

Josh watched her as she passed by him, overloaded with the tools of her trade, going to the closet. 

"Yes." 

Her head tilted, and her body paused. 

"I believe that Rachel is in hell. I believe that what she did was horrendous, to try to steal people from the Faith and lie about Christ." He looked up. "I would never do such a thing. And when she was stoned, I knew that it was the Law." 

Half the truth. 

Josh pushed off of the wall, trod despondently to Evie. He made eye contact, stood up straight. His hands turned to fists, clenched. "But even if she had desecrated a church, the fact is that she lived in a secular nation. The United States was, and should be, a secular nation. It was Rachel's right to say what she believed. And we all should have the right to think and say what we believe. That was the beauty of the United States: freedom. By becoming a 'Christian' nation, we've destroyed those rights. That can't continue." 

She moved to Josh, and took his hands. He felt the shuddering inside her. The fear and faith warring. 

She saw his contradictions, his confusions, his determination to God and Constitution uneasily making truce. 

They bent their heads down. 

_Our Father, who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil. Amen._

He said Ay-men. She said Ah-men. 

Doug, hanging out in the kitchen, sneered softly, before calling out to them. 

* * *

Reviews are always appreciated. 


End file.
